Ponnuru's Corollary to Hanlon's Razor
“Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by stupidity” is technically known as Hanlon’s Razor. Ramesh Ponnuru’s proposes a novel corollary:
Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by
stupidity. This sound aphorism may have a less pithy political
corollary: Never attribute to strategy what can be explained by emotion.
I suspect economists and evolutionary psychologists will demur, but this rings true. Our modern environment is so unlike our adaptive environment that acting on impulse is usually folly.
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